For Sunday July 6, 2008

Romans 8:1-11
So Paul, at the end of Romans 7, has just finished his "I don't do what I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do - this is what I do. What a creep I am!" speech. And he says that the only way he (we) is (are) saved from such wretchedness is because of Jesus and what he has done for us on the cross. But how? That's what this week's passage from Romans 8 is about.
The "how" is to live in the Spirit of God. It's all about making the best choice, Paul tells us.
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. (vs 5)
The problem for many of us, is that we still choose to go back to our old life (the flesh) and live in it. What an absurd picture, really: Living in freedom from the old dead life we had, we instead choose to crawl back into a dead body, a carcass, and muck around in it, doing things that slowly drain the Spirit out of us and kill our spirit as well. Why do we do such foolish things? Maybe it is just that we would rather stick with the "known," as bad as it is, than the wonderful "unknown" of the Spirit life. We see real life-images of that all the time. The criminal who offends so he can go back to the knowns of prison rather than live in the unknowns of freedom. The addict who goes back to the horrible known of drugs rather than live in the terrifying but wonderful unknown of sobriety and responsibility. The woman who lives in the miserable known of an abusive relationship rather than leave into an unknown future. Those choices look so clear to those on the outside, and we say, "Are you nuts? Leave! Get a new life!" But in some way, we are no different when we go back to the things we did before we knew Christ.
Paul encourages us to get out of that dead carcass once and for all, and leave it behind. Then live in the unpredictable, confusing, frightening yet wonderful life of the Spirit.

For Sunday June 22 - Take Two Tablets and Call Me

Exodus 24
I don't think that we, as modern-day Christians, have a very good idea of the immense glory, holiness, or power of God. Our idea of God is been domesticated to fit what we are comfortable with. After all, God exists to make our lives better, right?
That isn't the view we get standing at the edge of Exodus 24. No, the view here is wonderful and terrible. A child in the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe asks eloquent Beaver a question about Aslan the Lion (the Christ figure in the book),
Child: "Aslan is safe isn't he?"
Beaver replies, "Safe? Oh no, he's not safe at all. But he is Good."
We love the goodness of God, but we sometimes love the idea of Him being safe more.
Exodus 24 - really all of Exodus - sets us straight. God is wonderfully good, forgiving, long suffering, and loving. But he is terribly Other. He's not like us. His holiness means that he's separate, different than anything we can imagine or wrap our minds around. He gives his Law because he loves his people so much. But soon after he's ready (Exodus 32) to wipe out the whole race and start over with little Moses clones. He wants all people to know him, but "no one may see (God) and live" (Ex 33:20). Even those, here in chapter 24, who "see God" seem only to see a bit of him. They describe only the foot of his throne. But this is enough of God to fill them with wonder and awe. He wraps himself in a thick fog and fire; the mountain shakes violently - and that's before he even utters a word. No, this God who speaks from burning bushes and donkeys, who writes on walls and tablets and on human hearts - he's nothing like us. Yet he makes us in his image. We know ourselves only when we know him who is unknowable. Oh my.
When was the last time you trembled at the glory of God? Really trembled with fear and dread and worship and wonder. - Curtis

For Sunday June 8 - It's a Long Race

Genesis 12:1-9
I think I mis-named the sermon, but it's already printed in the bulletin, so "oh well." It isn't the first time I've thought about what to name the thing and then, later, I think, "What was I thinking? That's not what it's about at all." Anyway...
Fourteen years ago, when Ana was just a couple of months away from releasing Malia from her womb, I thought it would be fun to take a little trip. So we borrowed a friend's mini-van, tossed in almost 4-yr old Amanda, 18 month old Becca, and invited the rest of Ana's family to come along on an adventure. And surprisingly, they signed on. Ana's sister, hubby, and their 2 small children; Ana's brother and his new wife. The Adventure: A driving trip from Fresno California to British Columbia - just over 1000 miles each way with 2 small children, a 7.5 month pregnant wife, and just enough money to stay in every Motel 6 we could find along the way. (They may leave the light on for ya, but they need to wash their sheets better and maybe think about some new mattresses too...) This is the kind of husband and father I was. Along the way, Ana discovered just how car sick a pregnant woman could become in the winding hills of Southern Oregon, how bad sciatica could hurt, and, I suspect at that moment, how much she wished she had married a rich man who could fly her to the French Riviera. It was a good time.
I relate this story because it reminds me of Abram (later he was Abraham) and the push God gave him in this week's passage out of his homeland and into - the unknown future. For my family, it was on that 2000 mile driving trip that we truly felt God telling us it was time to pack up, leave Fresno, and to come to Oregon. You see, on that very trip we stopped off and met the good folks of Cedar Hills Baptist Church for the first time. Just a few days before leaving on our trip, we got a call from the "search committee" from CHBC. I did a phone interview and told them we were heading out on this trek North. They said, "come on by when you're here" and so we did. It was, oddly enough, a bit cool and rainy and we fell in love with the people and the place. A few weeks later we were back for a weekend, and the rest, as they say, is history. Fourteen years of melding our lives with people here; of kids growing up and heading off to college soon; of mission trips and prisons, VBS's and weddings, funerals and baptisms. Life together. Who would have known? It was very hard to leave who and what we knew. Family, friends, that life. The only thing that mad it easier was sensing clearly that God was directing us.

Surely Abraham didn't know the big story, even though God told him more than he tells most of us. It really isn't a race at all, as my mislabeled title implies. It's about God's Story working it's way out in lives as he melds those lives together into his Big Story. And every good and lousy thing that happens in our little stories fits somehow into a wonderful, Grand Tale told by the Author.
Thoughts? - Curtis

For Sunday June 1 - What Doesn't Shift

Psalm 46

(Video was made this for Kids Klub kids this week - birds & nest are in our back yard!).
As the goofy insurance ad says, "Life comes at you fast." Take this cool thing for instance...
Last Saturday, less than a single week ago, Ana ran across a little bird nest in our back yard (that's it above). It was on the ground in an area where she was weeding. In the tiny nest, she discovered four little hatchings which looked as if they had just come out of their shells.
I decided to chronicle the progress of the birds, figuring that it would be a couple of weeks before they left the nest and struck out on their own. Wrong! This morning I looked outside and found them not only out of their nest hopping around, but trying to leave the area completely. By this afternoon, they were hopping through the fence into the yard next door; mom and dad right with them, teaching them how to peck for worms and food.
The irony was not lost on me that God put this evolving story in our yard just as Amanda is hopping out of our nest and preparing to fly. She turns 18 in two weeks and had her last day of school yesterday. By Fall she'll fly off to Santa Clara University.
Changes like these are good. But what about the tough ones? How do we handle life then? That's what this week's Psalm is about - life when the earth quakes and the seas are foaming; when nations are in uproar. How do we rely upon God as our refuge then? Here's a hint I found in the Psalm: "Selah" - it's a Hebrew word scholars have had a tough time with for literally thousands of years. They think it may be a musical term, but it seems to come from a root Hebrew word "calah" that means weight or measure. So it might means something else. We will explore that on Sunday in worship. - Curtis

For Sunday May 25 - Dying for Citizenship

Matthew 6:19-34
Philippians 3:17-21
For several weeks, since Easter in fact, we've been looking at what it means to live on the "other side of resurrection." After all, life is supposed to be different, fuller, more zesty if we are resurrection people - right? So we've been exploring why that isn't always the case and what needs to change or mature in us so that the life Jesus modeled is more of a reality than a pipe dream.
I've normally heard this week's passage preached or studied as a way to get people to give more, and not waste on selfishness. That's probably part of it, but it falls short of the more substantial point Jesus was making: Use your resources for things that last; eternal things. In the long run, we'll be happy we did and we will enjoy them so much more. Still, we lack a lot of creativity when it comes to living out this principle of citizenship in the Kingdom. We keep thinking in terms of giving our money. But "storing up treasure in heaven" means a lot more than that. What are come creative ways we can do this "storing" of our treasure? What might that look like? And how does the Church play into it? Is there something to be learned from the way the Israelites brought their offerings into the temple and then had feasts and celebrations, and shared the abundance with the rich and the poor alike? Ideas? - Curtis

For Sunday May 18 - This is Easy?

1 Peter 4:12-19
The picture here is of a bombed church in Iraq. Would you go to worship the next Sunday if this happened to our church?
One of my biggest, and I mean BIGGEST pet peeves in modern Christianity is the way the faith is portrayed as a remedy for life's tough stuff. That is to say, Christianity is peddled as solution to all of life's problems, and that God will replace your troubles with comfort and ease if you do things right. Smiling preachers all over media spout that dribble. Suffering is a result, according to some teachers, of "some hidden sin" in a person's heart. While that may, in fact, be the cause of some kinds of suffering - Peter even says we need to make sure that that's NOT why we are suffering - the Christian is told to embrace suffering as a path to deep faith in God.
There is an essential difference, at the same time, between the normal suffering that comes with life - ie sickness, accidents, death and grieving, etc. - and the suffering that comes our way as a result of being a follower of Christ. In the West we don't often deal with the latter brand of suffering very much. But Christians all over the world know such suffering well. The Church in China (check out this BBC article from 2004) and Iraq, for instance, know what it is to suffer. Instead of seeing ourselves (the Church in the West) as specially blessed because we do not suffer, could it be that we are somehow poor because we don't know the riches that result from such suffering? Could it be that sacrifice is part of what opens the door to being a suffering people - and we're not so good at genuine sacrifice? What would happen if we began to really sacrifice? Is that a frightening prospect for you? What would that kind of sacrifice look like in real life? - Curtis

For Sunday May 11 - Pentecost

The Kingdom Comes
John 20:19-23
Acts 2:1-13
The picture here (not a fake) doesn't have much to do with the topic today (unless you look in Acts 2 where it talks about people thinking the Spirit-pumped followers of Jesus were drunk), but I just thought it was weirdly funny. It's from Texas where there are, apparently, drive-thru adult beverage spots. No it isn't legal to drink and drive, but it's fine to get an alcoholic drink, tuck it away, and drive. No sipping of course. Seems like a bad idea to me - but that's Texas for you (my home state).
So....one of the biggest promises of the Old Testament is that the Spirit of God will be poured out on all who know God. Just a few of the passages that talk about this promise ...

Isaiah 19:13-15
Isaiah 32:14-16
Isaiah 44:2-4
Ezekiel 39:28-29
Joel 2:27-29
Zechariah 12:9-11

The Spirit is something -rather someone - who we may not miss in our lives that much if we've never known him. Before I became a Christian during college, I didn't really think that anything was missing. I know Billy Graham and others say that unbelievers have a "God-shaped hole in their hearts" - but I didn't feel it. Until I became a Christian, that is. Then I noticed that something seemed different. I sensed God alive in me in new ways. And when I strayed away from God (frequently in those years), I had a lonliness that didn't exist before. At least that was my experience (which may not be the norm).
In scripture the Spirit seems to be given to Adam and Eve as a part of God creating them. God breathes his wind/life/breath/Spirit into them and they become alive. There's no specific verse that says that God took the Spirit away after they "fell away." But God does tell them that they will "die" if they sin. This death may be not only physical but also a separation from the Spirit of God - a kind of Spiritual death that eventually leads to physical death as well. The rest of the Old Testament narrative implies that humankind is no longer privileged to have the Spirit dwell in them. However the notable exceptions include prophets and a few others like David. David experiences the separation from God's Spirit when he has his fling with Bathsheba and knocks off her hubby. When confronted with his sin he prays (Psalm 51) "take not your Holy Spirit from me."
Perhaps there is a very big tie between the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost and the coming of God's Kingdom that we've been studying in worship recently. You can't have one without the other, in fact. The Kingdom comes as the Spirit comes. We'll go into this interesting link in worship - or at least ask some big questions.
Check out the question above to the right. - Curtis

For Sunday May 4 - A New Mind for a New Kingdom

Ephesians 4:17-24
"How do I really move forward?" That's one of the big questions most of us wrestle with at various times in our lives. We want to get out of certain ruts, habits, addictions, but we fall back in. We try and try, but end up in those ruts all over again. "At least they only affect me" we say to ourselves. Or we hope they only impact us personally. Well, yes, there might be those in our families who have to deal with our crud. But that's it. Right? Oops. No, that isn't all. The whole point of Paul's "out with the old, in with the new" section of the letter to the believers in Ephesus is this: Believers are the Body of Christ, and are tied together as a Body. There is a unity; there must be a unity. And if one little cell in that Body is sick or messed up, then there's trouble in the Body. And we don't want to be the Corpse of Jesus, but the living Body of Jesus in the world. After all, there's a Kingdom to build and a corpse can't do that very well.
So in Ephesians 4, Paul tries to tackle this idea of how we move forward, getting away from that stuff in our old lives that pulls us back, holds us down, ties us up.
In writing to Gentiles who had come to a knowledge of Christ's new Kingdom and the Truth of God, Paul tries to direct them along a path away from the old worthless crud of their previous life, and onto a new path within the Kingdom. That wasn't easy, considering all the baggage they brought along from GentileVille. But if they want to live, if they want to be a part of a new Kingdom, if the world is really going to know about God's power at all, they have to get a new mind and move on a different path with Christ. Now the challenge is ours. - Curtis

For Sunday April 6 - Lessons from Failure

John 21:15-25
I don't think there is anything more disabling than failure. Grief is completely disabling, but there is usually a sense that, in time, the feelings will pass and life will get back to normal. Failure, though, can be even harder to "get over" or, more appropriately, heal from than death. Failure haunts us and makes us disconnect from others because it is such a lonely thing to fail.
Who hasn't had a failure? Every life is marked by a few of these nasty experiences and yet when it happens to us, or when we are the cause, it can scar us for a lifetime.
Peter had to feel like one huge loser. A true failure. He had been given a chance to be the "Rock" on which Jesus would build his Church; he was entrusted with huge secrets; he was blessed with a close friendship with Messiah. But he blew it. He disavowed Jesus. He denied knowing him three times and turned away. Judas killed himself when confronted with his shame. We could see Peter doing the same thing.
This week's passage is really about a new creation: The re-creation of Peter. If the message of a new Kingdom is going to have any teeth, it must bring newness to those who have failed; those who have been detroyed. And so it does. The lessons Jesus teaches Peter, and all those watching or reading the story ever since, have a lot to tell us about newness in Christ and how to come back from life's biggest failures.

For Sunday March 30 - What Now? Living on the Other Side of Resurrection

John 21:1-14
There are puzzling questions that go with this passage. Why don't the disciples recognize Jesus right away? It seems they are just hanging out, not knowing what is next - why?
In Shane Claiborne's book, The Irresistible Revolution, he makes the point that becoming a Christian, to him, seemed to be a matter of a list of don'ts. And that after he made changes in his life, he wondered of that was all there was. "Don't do this, don't do that." But what was he supposed to do? That's a familiar concept, isn't it? We cram this new life in Christ into a tight little package, don't we? We quantify, qualify it, define it in ways that are manageable to us. But in the process, it may easily cease to resemble Jesus' life at all. Which is where I think this passage comes in. One part of what happens here, I think, is some shock treatment for the disciples. They are at risk of falling back into a comfy pattern of life - because they (like Claiborne) don't know what else this new life is supposed to look like. So Jesus rattles their plans, shows them the emptiness of going back to the old life (no fish), and then reminds them how overwhelming and powerful life with him is.
The hard thing is that it seems almost impossible for us to live this new life. We fall into patterns that look like the old ones over and over. But there's so much more to find. How can we live in the new, full net way of living all the time? Thoughts? - Curtis

For Easter Sunday - A New Era

Matthew 28:1-10
Why? Why does it happen like it does? Wouldn't it have been great if Jesus' resurrection had been a bigger deal to the public? Some sort of publicity or announcement would have been nice, for heavens sake. Like when Obama came to town this week, they let everyone know. Thousands showed up and cheered. Those who didn't like the message could have showed up to protest (maybe they did, but it wasn't covered).
But it didn't happen for the biggest even since creation. How come?
Palm Sunday's entry in Jerusalem was a big public event. But not the resurrection.
The trial of Jesus was a public event witnessed by many. But not the resurrection.
The death of Jesus on the cross was a very public event. But not the resurrection.
Why? Wouldn't the Father want as many people as possible to see it, experience it, believe it?
Yes the Bible says that hundreds later saw Jesus after he rose in subsequent weeks. Yet it didn't happen at first. What's the deal? That's what we'll explore in the brief message this week, along with why it matters. Thoughts? - Curtis

For Palm Sunday (March 16) - A Kingdom Parade

Matthew 21:1-11
This week we come to one of those passages that's hard to get a fresh grasp on because we are so used to it, if we've been in the Church for a long time. Palm fronds, kids processing in the santuary, cries of "Hosanna" which sound fun, but we're not sure just what these cries mean (save!). Jesus accepts the people's praises and apparent proclamation of being a King, but he knows full well that in just a few days his time on earth will come to a violent end.
Just what's going on?
As we've been learning for the past few weeks, there is a Kingdom thing happening. All through the Gospels Jesus talks more about the Kingdom of God than just about anything else. Most of his parables are about the Kingdom, Jesus' final week might just be the clearest evidence we have that he was ushering in the Kingdom of God on earth. Back at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus said,
From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. (Matthew 11:12)
What if Jesus was really talking about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth - now? What if his final week was the end of an old earth and the beginning of something new happening - even if we've been incredibly slow to figure it out? If there's truth in this perspective, then what might Palm Sunday and the way Jesus arrived in Jerusalem mean? What's different about this understanding? What might it mean for how we are to live our lives? Share some thoughts here! - Curtis

For Sunday, March 9 - A Vision of Re-Creation

Romans 8:6-11 (Ezekiel 37:1-14 too)
One of the themes God seems to be hammering away at for me is this concept of recreation. Not as in gas guzzling "recreational vehicle," but as in RE-Creation. Something being re created. (Which by the way, is the idea behind the concept of recreation...times of recreation are supposed to re-create us). The idea that's been bouncing around in my cranium is that God is constantly performing a do-over of creation. If it is true that humanity, and indeed the entire cosmos, went terrible wrong just after being created (initially perfect and good) - as the result of humankind's rebellion from God, then the work of God involves re-creating everything as it was meant to be. That's what Romans 8 says,
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
The Bible stories are, among other things, about returning creation to the way the world was meant to be before the Fall. Freedom, forgiveness, redemption, grace - all of these are about God creating all over again. Resurrection is re-creation.
So when God, in Ezekiel 37, gives this tremendous vision of the Valley of Dry Bones growing new tendons and new flesh and rising up as a vast army, it isn't just about those bones becoming the living dead. It's about re-creation of Israel, and of humanity.
The question then becomes, how is God creating all over again today? What is he re-creating? How are you and I involved? We're very in tune to the "groaning" of the fallen creation, but how in tune are we to the birth of new things? To our part in this birth through the power of Jesus' resurrection? Check out this week's question to the right, above, and chime in with your thoughts!
- Curtis

2nd Post from the Pastors Convention

Picture here is Shane Claiborne, talking about his new book, "Jesus for President."

Big Ideas

You've probably heard me mention NT Wright in some of my sermons over the last year. He's an Anglican Bishop and a prominent English theologian who has stirred no small amount of controversy because of some of his ideas and interpretations. He's been the speaker here for the last 2 sessions, mixed in with lots of music, comedy and other fun stuff. When he gets up to preach or, more accurately, lecture, he's like a fire hyrdant being opened up full throttle. He doesn't do much pleasantry stuff, but just lets loose. Last night, when the hydrant of his teaching opened, he flooded the room. I've never seen anyone preach like him. It isn't his style that's amazing, it's the speed, the force, the ideas, the sheer volume (amount, not loudness), of it. He explodes all over with thoughts and images that are new and amazing. Although there are things I don't completely agree with or maybe understand, he's very powerful and thought-provoking. Not in a charismatic way, but a very spiritual, intellectual, blow-you-into-new-territory kind of way. For any of you who are interested, I recorded his talks and you're free to listen to them when I return. I can burn them on a cd for you.
The first night I arrived in San Diego, I spotted NT Wright on Nightline (I think- or another late night thing, but I'm fairly certain it was Nightline). They have a “Faith” segment they've been doing, and maybe you saw him too. He talked about one of his “radical” ideas that says Christians have the whole idea of the afterlife wrong. Of course they tried to make him seem more edgy than he really is by highlighting Wright's belief that when we die we don't live forever in heaven. Instead he looks at passages like Revelation 21 that talk about the “New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” - and he says that's an image of heaven on earth; eternity on a newly created earth. That may seem like splitting apocalyptic hairs, but the thing that's radical about it is his view that eternity may be very different than what we've been taught in our culture/church. Instead of being a forever in heaven experience, singing God's praises for all time, NT interprets scripture to mean that eternity is about God's Kingdom coming to earth – the New Jerusalem coming out of heaven, and that perhaps it begins now as we work and live out Kingdom values. He very much believes in eternity, resurrection, resurrection bodies and eternal life, and heaven being a real place. What's different is “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven” points us to the possibility that God is starting this whole revolution of new creation now, not after some destruction of all creation and God starting over. And you and I, our church and our individual lives, are meant by God to be little glimpses of God's re-creation of all thing beginning now, not later after we die. As little chunks of a new creation, we are put together by God to be building blocks in a whole new created world. It is quite scriptural, but not exactly the way the bible has been interpreted for a long time. Christians are windows for others into God's new recreation, at our best. Our problem is that, as windows, we're quite foggy. All of this has things to say about our priorities, our resources, our vision for who we are and what we are to do - now.
Anyway, I probably risk making him sound like something he's not – but I believe he's right on target. I'd enjoy the chance to share more with you when I return.
Otherwise, I haven't been out much! Just going to seminars and buying my year's supply of books and supplies for church – everything is half price here.
In the next few days I'll be doing some planning for future worship and sermons; visiting my brother in LA; checking out Loyola University, (where Amanda has been accepted, but isn't yet sure she wants to attend) and if I get up the chutzpah, I may venture out to the surf for the closest I'll ever get to walking on water.
I'll keep you posted on my adventures if I can locate continual internet access. Grace to you this week as you seek to be little windows of God's new creation.
If you want to see or hear more about the convention I've attended, check out: http://zondervan.typepad.com/zondervan/ - this is their blog. Let me know if you spot me in any of the pictures...
- Curtis

From San Diego - February 27th

1176 Miles From Home
No, it's not a sermon I'm writing about this week, but my adventure to San Diego for the Pastors Convention. I left town Sunday afternoon and zig-zagged my way to San Diego in my blue rental Chevy Cobalt by Tuesday for the conference. I know that being able to attend is an extravagance. Our church is able to pay a chunk and Ana graciously says "you need it, go for it" - so we pay the rest and here I am. I'm sharing some of what goes on here so that you'll have some idea of what's going on for me this week.
The things they have here for the 2000+ pastors from across the country are really quite amazing. I'm referring to the speakers and ideas and resources available - 60 seminars with more than 50 different speakers. Right now I'm typing away in a room they have set aside with internet access - a big comfy room with overstuffed chairs, and a young woman playing guitar and singing for us. She's a PK, probably in her mid 20's who's voice sounds like a cool stream. I suspect she'll be better known one day - Hannah Ford. Sort of reminds me of our own gifted Britt Petrovich, who I can see doing something like this too one day.
Last night the main speaker was a Rwandan Bishop who spoke about reconciliation and his experiences growing up as a child exiled to Uganda and then coming back to his home country. He spoke of seeing murderers who hacked up children during the civil war - who were then forgiven by the victims' families. "Who but Jesus could cause people to forgive such terrible things?" he said.
This morning Chuck Colson, (Watergate convict, Prison Fellowship founder) spoke. He shared the desperate need to teach people the core truths of our faith, not just so we know head knowledge, but so that we'll have a pool of understanding with which to act upon and change the world.
A bit later I spent two hours in a seminar called "Two Way Mission Trips." It was put on by Christianity Today and used all of us attenders as sounding boards and resources for an upcoming training series for short-term missions. There were just a few of us in the seminar, but it was good. It was encouraging for me to learn that our partnership with Shekina/Shalom is very unique and that we're doing a lot of things "right." It occurred to me that, with the large group going in July to El Salvador, we are approaching almost 40-50% of our church having made the trip - and being changed in deep ways by the relationships and experiences. I was also reminded once again that the trips we do are not especially about what great things we can go go do for "those people" far away. It is even more about our desperate need to receive the gifts of their faith and the way they teach us about relationships and the Body of Christ in the world. Hopefully, along the way, we'll be able to give them some gifts as well - but they may not be the ones that we think they are.
The last seminar I attended was a 90 minute talk by Shane Claiborne. He's a rather radical guy that might remind some people of a left-over or resurrected Jesus freak from the 60's. But he's much more than that. He's challenging and faith-shaking in very good ways; he lives in a "Christian Community" with 7 other people in inner-city Philly. They do strange good work with the homeless and speak up loudly on matters of justice. His new book is called Jesus For President. Afterward, I got to chat with him for a few minutes. In one of his other books, Irresistible Revolution, I read that he knew our Salvadoran friends, Ruth and Alex, so I talked with him about them. I also mentioned how I sent Stephen a copy of Irresistible Revolution, and that he loved the book -- that it helped ignite a new understanding of his faith that he could really dig into. Shane offered to write Stephen in prison, which I think Stephen will really enjoy.
So it's been a full couple of days already. I've run into a couple of people from Oregon, including one surprisingly unfriendly pastor from Hillsboro! He was quite un-interested in talking to me when I sat next to him, and then he hogged the leg and elbow room to boot. Oh well, maybe he had a bad day.
Well, time to wrap this up since I need to grab some dinner. Kids Klub back home is sitting down to eat right now too. The singer, Hannah, just finished up and so I went up to get her CD. Maybe she won't be so famous - I was the first cd she sold all day! Turns out her dad (flashing pictures and clapping loudest), is an American Baptist pastor as well - and we share some friends in N. California. More to come tomorrow...
- Curtis

For Sunday, February 24 - Parched

Exodus 17:1-7

The pic here is from an Irish church, 10th Century - Moses is the dude on the left striking the rock (well, the whole thing looks like a rock to me)- and then the Israelites are lined up in two rows with ancient Tupperware to hold the water.
This Exodus passage is a good one - where the people once again get testy with God (who doesn’t?). They complain about God not being with them, not providing for their needs (water). God instructs Moses to strike the rock and it will gush forth. I’m not totally sure where I’ll go with this yet, but it will have to do with times when our faith runs dry and how God responds.

For Sunday, February 10 - Down But Not Forgotten

Genesis 3 (Romans 5 to a lesser extent)
So I'm super late with this week's blog. I've been reading tons of commentaries and books about the passages this week and I finally had to stop to actually write the blog and, more importantly, the sermon. I think it would be interesting to actually get people to post some comments here in response to the message tomorrow. I wonder if anyone will. What seems true is that almost everyone has some very strong ideas about what we've come to call the "Fall of Man" (forgive the paternalistic language). Most of what we think the bible says, though, is from people's interpretation of the Genesis 3 passage - not necessarily from what it does explicitly say. So here are some of my rambling thoughts below. I may mention some of this in the sermon, but I'll largely be going in a slightly different direction. Please post your thoughts and ideas too...

This serpent is strange. He's crafty, he talks. But the woman doesn't seem to think this odd. We don't know so many things here. How long Adam and Eve have been around? What do they do in the garden? Are there other talking creatures in this garden, and why does this serpent talk? We have a very small picture with which to make a big story.
What we do know is that people are intricately linked with the creation around them. Adam is made from the dirt, and his work (pre-fall) is to tend the dirt and farm it for food. Eve is made from Adam and so she's from the same “stuff” as Adam. There are some odd things that we may have been mis-taught in the past. Here are some realities from the passage as I see them:
* Adam is “master” (NLT) or "ruler" (NIV) of Eve as a result of the fall (3:16)– it wasn't evidently meant to be this way, which puts a real dent in paternalistic views of man's relationship to women. There's a better way than “lording” it over women.
* The serpent is not identified with Satan here at all. He may be Satan, but it isn't spelled out here (look to Revelation for that).
* Work, ie labor, is not part of the curse. The hardship of work is the result of God cursing the ground. Again we're more tied to the earth than we still seem to understand today (3:17-19). God says that man will scratch out a living from the ground til the day he dies, then he will return to the dust. We come from dirt, we tend the dirt, we go back to dirt. What does this tell us about how we should care for the earth? It is home.
* Eve doesn't even have a name until this whole episode is over. Why? No wonder she talked to the serpent, he was paying more attention to her than Adam, who hadn't even said "Hey baby, what's your name?"
* Here's one that I never saw before: People don't live forever (pre-Fall) and only die as a result of the sin and the curse. I always thought humans were made to live eternally except for the problem of sin. Which, in a way, is still true, but not in the way I thought. Instead, while humans are in the Garden, they have the freedom to eat of the Tree of Life. This tree, or the fruit, seems to give them eternal life. When they are booted out of the garden, they lose access to the Tree. And so they die. God doesn't want messed up, fallen, unregenerate people to go on living forever. That would let evil expand terribly. He slows down or puts a limit on the growth of evil by letting people die eventually. It doesn't seem to slow evil down much, though.
Enough for now. By the way, for a good laugh do a google search for "Adam and Eve" images. There's some pretty funny stuff out there, and bizarre stuff too.
- Curtis

For Sunday, February 3 - The Ways of the Kingdom

Matthew 5; Isaiah 53
On the surface, these two passages don't have a lot to do with each other. But I consider it a spiritual gift to be able to bend and twist disparate passages and ideas into something that will preach as one - or maybye it's heresy, who knows?
Matthew 5, what we normally call "The Sermon on the Mount" is Jesus' inaugural speech about the Kingdom of God/Heaven that he brings. Most believers, even non-Christians, stand in awe of Jesus' words here. Though he re-states many of the ideas of the prophets and sages of Jewish Old Testament history, he does so with perfect clarity, simplicity and beauty. One can't help but read through the Sermon and simply think, "Yes, if only the world and people were like this..."
Which is exactly the problem. It isn't and we aren't. Instead we find that, at our best, we consider Jesus' words impossible ideals. But we don't really think there's any way things can be as he describes.
Here's a thought: What if he really meant what he said? On both the individual level (inner me stuff), and on the social level of how we treat each other - and (gasp) - how tribes and nations treat each other? What would it mean to turn the other cheek and bless those who persecute us? How do we possibly do that? If we get ticked off when someone cuts us off in traffic, who we don't even know, then how do we ever forgive someone who has injured our soul? And yet here we are with these words about a very different kingdom.
That's where I think Isaiah 53, the passage of the Suffering Servant comes in. I don't know how far I'll get towards tying all of this together in the sermon - maybe it will be more than one. We'll see...
Your thoughts?
- Curtis

For Sunday, January 20 - No Such Thing As Pointless

Isaiah 49:1-16
The second of the "Servant Songs" in Isaiah that points to both Israel and the Messiah as the representative of the remnant of faithful Israel.
What strikes me is that, in both Jesus' thinking and Paul's, we are called to be servants of God. We take that call rather lightly, assuming it means simply to do some few acts of obedience to God, instead of seeing it for what it really is: a total, radical, overwhelming, mess-up-your-life call to completely serve God. We settle for servanthood-lite, which is not much at all, I fear. If the Servant of Isaiah is, in some way, a model for what being a servant looks like, then we should be shocked. He fails, he is discouraged, he wonders if anything that he does has any value at all. Yet he sticks with it, confident that God has a reason for it. So, are we really doing anything close to serving God like the Servant does? What would that look like today? - Curtis

For Sunday, January 13 - Beyond Limitations

Isaiah 42:1-9
This is the 2nd of the “Servant Songs” in Isaiah. It speaks of God’s mission for his servant and his people. As we study God’s purpose for the Servant, we’ll try to see how the Servant relates to us and what the mission has to do with us. How does understanding Jesus’ purpose and mission change us?
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The past couple of weeks, thanks to some time off and wonderful people like Peter Clay and Gavin Silaski preaching, I've had the chance to do more reading than usual and actually think of things besides, "What am I going to say in the sermon this week?"
Turns out that life/God has been pelting me from various directions with messages about direction and purpose and what God really wants me to be doing. Which is sort of where this passage seems to be pointing as well - for the Servant, who Christians believe to be Jesus. We tend to think that Jesus was born with a God-brain and perfectly clear sense of who he was, what he was supposed to do in life. But I doubt that was the case. Part of being human is growing, maturing, finding what it is we are supposed to be and do. So if Jesus was fully human (as well as fully God), he probably had to develop a sense of his mission and purpose too. The servant songs of Isaiah may have been a big part of finding his identity. How do we find our purpose?
I've been reading books (slowly, yes) that are disturbing like NT Wright's Evil and the Justice of God, and The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne. And I've recently listened to an interview with Jean Vanier, a philosopher and Catholic social innovator who created a model of community, L'Arche - a community for people with special needs due to developmental disabilities.
I think my mind is about to explode, but this is all a part of the "message pelting" that God is doing. It relates to Isaiah 42 for me because God is repeating a life-long message for each of us that our lives are meant to be about more than just getting through another day or even finding "what makes us happy." There is purpose and meaningful work that he has for each person. Finding and doing that means that we have to go beyond the limitations we put on ourselves - or that our faith can put on us. And normally that simply means we have to get out of our ruts and do some things differently each and every day.
Yes I'm rambling. That's what a blog is. Your thoughts, your ideas? Is anyone out there?
- Curt